Link: http://enenews.com/former-un-advisor-ive-been-told-maybe-50-years-to-contain-radiation-if-no-4-pool-collapses-during-50-years-continual-you-cannot-contain-video

Reactor 4 contained no fuel when the earthquake hit. Instead, the spent fuel rods had been moved to a cooling pool on the second floor of the containment unit. [...] If another high level earthquake hits the area, the building will certainly collapse. Japanese and American meteorologists have predicted that such a strong earthquake is indeed likely to hit this year. The meltdown and unprecedented release of radiation that would ensue is the worst case scenario ... such an accident would force the evacuation of the 35 million people in Tokyo, close half of Japan and compromise the nation’s sovereignty.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31004.htm

The Republicans are a sick joke, and their narrow ideological stupidity has left rational voters no choice in the coming presidential election but Barack Obama. With Ron Paul out of it and warmongering hedge fund hustler Mitt Romney the likely Republican nominee, the GOP has defined itself indelibly as the party of moneyed greed and unfettered imperialism.

Link: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ND06Ak03.html

It was deep into the night, somewhere over Siberia, in a Moscow to Beijing flight (BRIC to BRIC?) when the thought, like a lightning bolt, began to take hold. What the hell is wrong with those Arabs? Maybe it was the narcotic effect of that perennially dreadful Terminal F at Sheremetyevo airport - straight out of a Brejnev gulag. Maybe it was the anticipation of finding more about the Russia-China joint naval exercise scheduled for late April.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/6/new_details_emerge_over_police_fatal

Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez has obtained a photograph of White Plains Police Officer Anthony Carelli, the officer alleged to have fired the two shots that killed Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., the 68-year-old former Marine whose medical alert button accidentally summoned police to his apartment last November. The police union has blasted the release of the officer’s name, saying he deserves the right to a fair and impartial inquiry. Chamberlain’s son said he agrees, but notes that the White Plains police failed to grant his father the same opportunity.

Link: http://drtom.posterous.com/bailing-out-the-titanic-with-spoons

You can pay me to write, but not to lie. It's going to be complicated but it doesn't have to be. There are a lot of "I wants" in here, but I want them anyway. I want the Constitution back in place, and the basis for ALL our laws as it's supposed to be. I want the government's eyes out of my bedroom and their fingers out of my daughter's vagina. I want everyone to carry a gun who is qualified and competent with a gun and I want them to be able to defend themselves and their homes and families.

Link: http://presstv.com/detail/234920.html

Interview with Allen Roland, freelance alternative press online columnist, Sonoma ‎California. ‎So, we are still in the midst of a depression. The administration is doing everything it can do to paint a rosy picture, but has nothing to fall back on." The Egan-Jones agency has downgraded the US credit rating for the second time to AA as debt to GDP surpasses the 100 percent mark and is worsening. Press TV has interviewed Allen Roland, freelance alternative press online columnist in Sonoma California about the latest down grade adjustment to the US economy; how the administration is performing their duty to accurately inform Americans; and how this is affecting US consumers. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Link: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/nfp-big-miss-120k-expectations-205k-unemployment-82

The unemployment rate drops to 8.2% for one simple reason: the number of people not in the labor force is back to all time highs: 87,897,000.

Link: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1123

Back in the early 1980s, I had the extraordinary good fortune to get to meet one of my literary heroes, Kurt Vonnegut, up close and personal. We shared a police wagon, sitting next to each other for a ride to the station to be booked for blocking the door to the South African consulate in a demonstration against that country’s then policy of white rule and apartheid.

Link: http://www.alaskapublic.org/2012/04/06/polar-bears-show-signs-of-mysterious-illness/

Biologists have found Polar Bears in the Beaufort Sea with hair loss and skin lesions. Those are the same symptoms that have sickened ice seals and walruses in the arctic since last summer and led the federal government to declare the incident an unusual mortality event. Scientists are just beginning an investigation into whether polar bears are suffering from the same thing.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/mili-a06.shtml

From the standpoint of the US state and its intelligence apparatus, this pseudo-legal forum holds obvious attractions. It will allow the authorities, first, to quash any dispute over the decade of illegal detention and prolonged torture to which the defendants have been subjected and, second, to control testimony and evidence so as to prevent any inconvenient revelations surrounding the September 11 events themselves and the longstanding connections between Al Qaeda and the CIA.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/pers-a06.shtml

On March 25 of this year, the European Union celebrated the 55th anniversary of its foundation with the passing of the Treaties of Rome. The celebrations were a quiet affair compared to the pomp, and pageantry which marked the EU anniversary five years earlier. On that occasion leaders of the continent’s political parties and states met together with trade union leaders in the German capital city of Berlin to indulge in an orgy of self congratulation.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/spai-a06.shtml

Last week’s general strike in Spain displayed the readiness of the working class to resist the austerity measures being imposed by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) government, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31010.htm

In writing about the relentless collapse of Western economies, I frequently point to “forty years of plummeting wages” for Western workers, in real dollars. However, where I have been remiss is in quantifying the magnitude of this collapse in Western wages.